


Tithonus 2

by somekindofseizure



Series: WTID Supplemental Reading [6]
Category: The Fall (TV 2013), The X-Files
Genre: WTID, tithonus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-12-02 14:40:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11511495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somekindofseizure/pseuds/somekindofseizure
Summary: Anonymous asked:Could you, possibly, write that Tithonus scene from Stella's POV? if you are interested





	Tithonus 2

 

“Scully got shot,” he says and the room goes quiet, the man behind her with his belt buckle undone and his hands on his hips disappears.  People say they feel their heart stops in moments like this, but Stella feels nothing but, hears nothing but her heart beating.

And then she hears her breath crackle like cold cereal in the phone.  Feels herself swallow.

“Stella?”

“What?” she finally asks and Mulder repeats it but this time gets quickly to the other end of his sentence. “She’s doing okay, but I thought you should know.”

“She’s alive.”

“Yeah.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, Mulder.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to –“

“You lead with that. For fuck’s sake.”

She turns.  The handsome man,  Eliot was it?  Erik? from the restaurant is looking at her with a concerned face.  His Good Samaritan on the street face, his divorced dad face probably.  She cut her peaceful solo dinner short for him, but she cut the man short for Fox Mulder, and would cut anything, anyone short for Dana Scully.  She holds the phone between her jaw and her shoulder and buckles his belt for him. Picks up his shoes and hands them to him, ignores the growing confusion on his sexily scruffy face.  Mulder is babbling something about immortality and photographic negatives and she’s holding the door open.  She covers the receiver to tell the man she’s sorry, he has to go.  She’s just shut the door when Mulder gets to his next important point.

“I can’t stay here with her.”

“Here, where?”

“The hospital, in New York. They’re going to want to keep her.”

“I see.”  She wants to make sure she’s hearing what she thinks, doesn’t want to intrude.

“Will you – I mean you’re in another country – but there isn’t anyone else she’ll let hold her hand here, you know what I mean?  I could call her mother but that would probably just upset her and be exhausting for Scully and you would cheer her up… It’s not a big deal if you can’t, probably, she can take care of herself.”

She didn’t mean to let him ramble, it’s just that she’s already begun packing, wiping the man from the restaurant off her mouth.

“I’ll get on the first flight I can.”

He thanks her, sounds relieved, and she thanks him back for calling.  But she doesn’t get a bit of relief herself for several hours, not until she’s standing outside Scully’s hospital room window, sees all five feet and three inches in one piece, ever strand of her thick red hair in tact.  Not even really until she Scully’s cold hand and feels it solid in her palm, fingers gripping back despite the IV sunk into the top of her hand.  Whatever bit the bullet took out of her, Scully obviously didn’t need.

She’s disappointed that Scully notices she’s exhausted, not because it offends her, but because she’s trying hard not to need any caretaking.  She changed her clothes at the hotel.  She put on a fresh coat of mascara in the car.  She paid for the showiest room they have.  She’s here for fun, she’s here because it works for her.  But Scully looks at her over their knuckles and sees her, Scully can always see her.  She’ll be in charge in a minute, she’ll be fun in a minute, she’ll take care of whatever needs taking care of in a minute.  There is no point pretending she doesn’t have to catch her breath, no point pretending her heart hasn’t been on a treadmill for nine hours.

Her spine is warm where Scully’s hands rest and she thinks of her father’s hospital room.  Her mascara runs onto the hospital gown and she’s momentarily angry she ever got herself into this, let herself love this person. _In a minute_ , she tells her, and she really means _in a minute I’ll get you out of here, in a minute I’ll take you to my gorgeous hotel suite and put you in front of a fireplace, order you room service, offer you the giant Jacuzzi bathtub if you’re allowed to take baths, I’ll give you both chocolates from the pillows, anything but don’t you dare ever fucking do this to me again._

“Have you out by cocktail hour,” she says instead, and means that too.  


End file.
